Tag Archives: travel

Doing the business, though, he managed to trash his external drive with the accumulated iTunes tracks. Over half-a-gigabyte’s worth. Not so nice.

So there is a whole stack (geddit?) of reloading to be done.

Tracks

First off the pile was a mess of Julie London (the erstwhile Miss Gayle Peck, Mrs Jack Webb and Mrs Bobby Troup). No obvious reason: can’t think why (but those 33 rpm covers, as right, might be a clue).

And so, playing in the background, Malcolm had the Calendar Girl album smokily crooning.

This is from 1956, and comes from a time when some degree of planning, of “concept”, went into the construction of an LP. And the cover has those sub-Vargas images, which were ironic and cheesy even back in 1956.

Copper comes from Arizona, Peaches come from Georgia, Lobsters come from Maine, The wheat fields are the sweet fields of Nebraska, And Kansas gets bonanzas from the grain. Ol’ whiskey comes from ol’ Kentucky — Ain’t the country lucky? New Jersey gives us glue(which Malcolm always miscues as “gives us ‘flu”),And you, you come from Rhode Island — And little Rhode Island is famous for you.

Cotton comes from Louisiana, Gophers from Montana, And spuds from Idaho. They plough land in the cow-land of Missouri, Where most beef for roast beef seems to grow. Grand Canyons come from Colorado, Gold comes from Nevada — Divorces also do — And you, you come from Rhode Island, Little ol’ Rhode Island is famous for you.

Pencils come from Pennsylvania, Vests from West Virginia, Tents from Tentassee. They know mink where they grow mink in Wyomink; A camp chair in New Hampchair, that’s for me. Minnows come from Minnowsota, Coats come from Dakota, but why should you be blue? For you, you come from Rhode Island — Don’t let them ride Rhode Island, it’s famous for you.

Words

OK: Malcolm is a sucker for those witty, and usually arch, lyrics as patented by Cole Porter, which so regularly involve a list-poem. Before Porter here was William Schwenck Gilbert, who was pushing the limits in his own Victorian way.

And list-poems, which involve as simple a device as can be imagined, should not be scorned.

remember Gene Chandler topping the charts with Duke of Earlwhen the boys were set on taking the milk bar’s one banquetteand winning their hearts.

Class

When Malcolm was still at the chalk-face, one starter was Christopher Smart’s For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. In more ways than one, that has to be the ultimate “cat-alogue poem.” Malcolm suggests it’s the only bit of Jubilate Agno — written, in a lunatic asylum between 1758 and 1763, but only published in 1939— which is still in circulation. But then, what we now term “free” verse took a while to catch on.

Up-market

At the sophisticated end of the market, what is Chaucer’s General Prologue if not a list-poem? —

But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space, Er that I ferther in this tale pace, Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun To telle yow al the condicioun Of ech of hem, so as it semed me, And whiche they weren, and of what degree, And eek in what array that they were inne; And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.

Or chunks of Shakespeare:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by Nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wallOr as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands,—This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Or , much earlier still, all those thundering begat-ings of the Book of Genesis?

Cambridgeshire, of all England, The shire for Men who Understand; And of that district I prefer The lovely hamlet Grantchester. For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile; And Royston men in the far South Are black and fierce and strange of mouth; At Over they fling oaths at one, And worse than oaths at Trumpington …

The girls today in society go for classical poetry, So to win their hearts one must quote with ease Aeschylus and Euripides. One must know Homer, and believe me, Bo, Sophocles, also Sappho-ho. Unless you know Shelley and Keats and Pope Dainty Debbies will call you a dope

Note that knowing ho-ho — Gaydar on the twitch. After which count the titles and into Brush Up Your Shakespeare:

The issue is getting Thames Clippers to accept Oyster cards, and then to improve the frequency, and the stopping-points of the service.

For a start, Thames Clippers do a nice business charging a fiver for a single, and £12 for a day-pass. That is quite a bit of clipping the tourists. With the present equipment of a dozen catamarans, each licensed for about 220 passengers, there is no way the operation could cope with a full commuter service.

Recycling initiatives

Then again, it is difficult to count the number of times the Oyster-card option has been announced: Malcolm has references of it being “imminent” going back to 2006, and definitely pre-Boris. Since 2007 holders of travelcards have had some reduced fares.

Cllr Chris Roberts, Leader of Greenwich Council, said: “… The campaign has clearly struck a chord with local people who want to see reliable, affordable river services as a permanent feature of the public transport choices available to them…

“There are significant and undeniable transport benefits and regeneration benefits to extending the subsidy for the Thames riverboat service, and ensuring its secure future. Despite this, TfL’s subsidy for the riverboat service per passenger mile remains at only one-third of that for bus services.

By the look of it, that’s not greatly going to change.

Notes:

1. It’s pretty clear that, even after November, the Thames Clipper service will not be fully integrated into the Oyster Card operation. Hidden at the very end of that Times piece is this:

From November passengers on Thames Clippers will receive a one-third discount if they use their Oyster cards.

The cost of a single ticket will fall from £5 to £3.30.

2. There are some 30 odd different boat operators on the GLC stretch of the Thames. A bit of rationalisation, even municipalisation (the kind of thing that occurred in those semi-mythical glory days), might not come amiss.

3. Does the Oyster Card discount come at the expense of the senior travel pass? After all,

Restrictions will see pensioners’ free national off-peak travel passes no longer valid on coaches, open-top bus tours and any services intended “primarily for tourism”.

4. Why does the Times need a “London Correspondent”? Particularly when all she is doing here is re-editing a GLA/TfL press release?